The highly anticipated 2023 Doha Diamond League is just around the corner, featuring a range of high-quality events that are sure to excite fans and spectators alike. With so many amazing athletes set to compete, we’ve narrowed down the three must-see events that are sure to leave you on the edge of your seat.
Notable highlights of the event include the women’s 100m, 1500m, and pole vault, as well as the men’s 200m, 3000m, and javelin. Each of these events features top athletes and has the potential for record-breaking performances. Don’t miss out on the action, and get ready for an exhilarating competition that’s sure to be one for the books.
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Women’s 100m
Reigning world 200m champion Shericka Jackson (JAM) will open her Wanda Diamond League campaign over 100m in Doha, in an exciting line-up that includes former world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith (GBR).
Jackson – who ran a world-leading 10.82 (-0.1m/s) in Kingston on 22 April – is the first athlete in history to win a full set of World Championships medals across three sprint disciplines (100m, 200m, and 400m). She is a five-times Olympic medallist, most recently winning 4 x 100m relay gold and 100m and 4 x 400m bronze in Tokyo. At the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, in addition to winning 200m gold in a Jamaican record (21.45) – the second-quickest of all time – she took silver in the 100m and 4 x 100m. Her 100m best is 10.71 from the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco in August 2022.
Asher-Smith, who won world bronze over 200m in Eugene 2022, is the British 100m record holder with a best of 10.83 set at the World Athletics Championships in Doha 2019, where she finished second. She also holds the British 200m record (21.88). Twice an Olympic 4 x 100m relay bronze medallist, she won the Wanda Diamond League 100m crown in 2019.
Jackson has won four of the five previous meetings between the two over 100m.
The quality of the field extends beyond the highly decorated duo and also includes three of the USA’s World Championships winning 4 x 100m relay team, Melissa Jefferson (10.82 PB), Abby Steiner (10.90 PB) and Twanisha Terry (10.82 PB), plus former NCAA champion Sha’Carri Richardson (USA) who ran a wind-assisted 10.57 in Florida in early April (her legal best is 10.72).
Terry won the 100m at the Botswana Golden Grand Prix in Gaborone, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, on 29 April (11.05). Richardson finished second over 200m (22.54).
Men’s 200m
In an intriguing matchup over 200m, Olympic 200m champion Andre De Grasse (CAN) will go up against world 400m champion Michael Norman (USA), world 100m champion and Olympic silver medallist Fred Kerley (USA), and Olympic and world 200m silver medallist Kenny Bednarek (USA)
at the Seashore Group Doha Meeting.
De Grasse, a six-time Olympic medallist with a national record best of 19.62, had an interrupted build-up to the World Athletics Championships in Eugene last summer after injury and illness hampered his preparations. While Norman, Kerley and Bednarek enjoyed individual success, the 28-year-old world silver (200m) and bronze (100m) medallist from Doha in 2019 – who reached the 100m semi-final and later withdrew from the 200m – had to settle for 4 x 100m relay gold.
At last year’s Wanda Diamond League meeting in Doha, Kerley – who has a legal best of 19.76 for 200m – clocked a windy 19.75 to finish runner up to eventual world champion Noah Lyles, with De Grasse in fourth. At the 2021 event, Bednarek, who has a best of 19.68, got the better of De Grasse with the pair finishing first and second respectively. Norman, a former world under-20 200m champion, has a best of 19.70 from the Diamond League meeting in Rome in 2019. The versatile sprinter won the Doha 400m in 2021, with Kerley third.
In addition to De Grasse and the talented American trio, the men’s 200m at the Doha Meeting will also include Joseph Fahnbulleh (LBR), the NCAA champion over 100m and 200m and Liberian record holder (19.83) who finished fourth over 200m at the World Championships. Fahnbulleh’s season has already got off to a fast start with a 9.98 100m PB at the Tom Jones Memorial in Gainesville, Florida (15 April), his first ever sub-10 performance and a national record-equalling mark. He finished third over 200m in Gaborone (20.14) on 29 April, with De Grasse in seventh (20.41).
Men’s javelin
Olympic javelin champion and world silver medallist Neeraj Chopra – the Indian national record holder with a best of 89.94m – will join world champion Anderson Peters (GRN) and Olympic silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch (CZE) in a much-anticipated javelin competition at the Qatar Sports Club.
Chopra is an inspirational figure and has blazed a trail for Indian athletes throughout his career to date. He was the first Indian track and field athlete to set a world record (under-20) when he threw 86.48m to win the 2016 World U20 Championships, which was also the first time an Indian athlete had won a global track and field title.
He won javelin gold at the 2018 Asian Games, the first Indian athlete to do so, and made history in Tokyo when he became the country’s first Olympic gold medallist in track and field. He won Commonwealth Games gold in 2018 and was crowned 2022 Wanda Diamond League champion.
Due to injury, Chopra missed out on the incredible javelin competition at the 2022 Doha Meeting where two national records were broken, including the fifth-longest throw in history by Grenada’s two-time world champion Peters (93.07m), a mark only just outside Thomas Röhler’s 93.90m impressive meeting record from 2017.
Peters returns for the 2023 edition of the Doha Meeting, alongside Olympic silver medallist Vadlejch – European silver medallist and bronze medallist in Eugene – who also recorded a PB in Doha 2022 with his first ever throw over 90m (90.88m).
Alongside the decorated trio, the Doha Meeting also welcomes European champion Julian Weber (GER), the Olympic and world fourth-place finisher with a best of 89.54m; former Olympic champion and Trinidad & Tobago national record holder Keshorn Walcott (90.16m); and former world and Commonwealth champion and 2016 Olympic silver medallist Julius Yego, the Kenyan record holder (92.72m).